Diary of a writing, reading, animal loving, travelling Penguin and his mate who love collecting Penguin books, taking photographs and talking to people about Tasmania, Australia

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

Paris by Edward Rutherfurd - The Launch of

The other night T. and I went to Fuller's Book shop for the big launch of Edward Rutherfurd's book Paris. Rutherfurd is British and has lived in several countries and evidently seems to like writing big blockbusters. Paris comes in at over 800 pages and his previous books have also been large tomes. New York, London and Sarum are three of his previous works. After reading the first couple of chapters of Paris it appears to be very readable and I am looking forward to really beginning it once I get through the library books during the next 3 weeks.

I have not read Rutherfurd before but the turnout at Fuller's (my home away from home Indie Bookshop I am always carrying on about) was great. We got show bags for the price of our tickets. Upon entry we were given a glass of Sparkling Wine (champagne but the French don't like Australians calling their bubbly Champagne), a beautiful macaron biscuit that complimented the sparkly admirably and the VIP ticket gave us a copy of the book, and another couple of gifts. One was a classic book and the other was a beautiful metal tin with French cards to tie onto packages for gifts. Really nice.

Everyone sat down and waited for Mr. Rutherfurd to appear and he stood on a platform behind his podium in such a way everyone was able to see and hear him. He spoke about the book, read a passage from it and then took questions from the audience. It was a wonderful event and I would certainly go to more of these. I think what I enjoyed the most was the speech was short and to the point, including the questions lasted about 30 minutes. He is a very entertaining public speaker with a great sense of humour which was good fun to listen to.

Afterwards quite a few people got in the queue to have their books signed but we chose not to wait, instead going around the corner to get a Thai takeaway as we were hungry. Lunch had been awhile before. I don't really mind if a current book is signed or not. We will read it, talk about it and then no doubt pass it on to someone else.

I am looking forward to seeing who the next author is that they bring in. Always a treat when an author, especially from another country chooses to come to the bottom of the world to our little island. It isn't as if we're close to very many places. Until next time.